Topper wrote:The team is still supported by fair weather fans. The bandwagon was overloaded with the teams success, but as it falters, so will fan support. No longer will your buddies be watching when you stand and wave from your seat in the corner reds with your cell phone stuck to your ear.

Oh yeah, definitely. Vancouver is most definitely not a sports town. Going to the Canucks became very fashionable from 2008-2012 but that has died down quite a bit.

Topper wrote:The team is still supported by fair weather fans. The bandwagon was overloaded with the teams success, but as it falters, so will fan support. No longer will your buddies be watching when you stand and wave from your seat in the corner reds with your cell phone stuck to your ear.

Oh yeah, definitely. Vancouver is most definitely not a sports town. Going to the Canucks became very fashionable from 2008-2012 but that has died down quite a bit.

Is Vancouver not a sports town because of the large off-shore originated Asian population?

I'm asking because I don't know.

There ARE a lot of fairweather fans in this town. That's a fact. Even though the Nucks are the only real game in town, when the Nucks start sucking, people stop watching/caring and you'll start hearing idiotic comments like Luo sucks and blah blah blah.

I even got an idiot friend that said he'll start supporting the Coilers at the beginning of this season. Even in jest, you don't say stupid things like that.

That type of fairweather mentality is a stark contrast to real sports towns like Boston and New York where fans bleed red and pin stripe. I wonder if Vancouver will EVER become a real sports town.

I don’t think it’s just Vancouver. It’s the whole of the province, and dare I say Canada. I don’t get the sense that sports and athletics is really an integral part of Canadian culture.

People don’t really support sports in Canada all that well. Nearly every pro team has been in serious trouble at one time or another. Canucks, Oilers, Flames, Senators, Expos, Blue Jays, every CFL team, the Grizz of course.

Does anybody get out and support amateur athletics? Go to a major Canadian university hockey, soccer, football or basketball game and attendance can be measured in the hundreds.

herb wrote:I don’t think it’s just Vancouver. It’s the whole of the province, and dare I say Canada. I don’t get the sense that sports and athletics is really an integral part of Canadian culture.

People don’t really support sports in Canada all that well. Nearly every pro team has been in serious trouble at one time or another. Canucks, Oilers, Flames, Senators, Expos, Blue Jays, every CFL team, the Grizz of course.

Does anybody get out and support amateur athletics? Go to a major Canadian university hockey, soccer, football or basketball game and attendance can be measured in the hundreds.

I was going to disagree with you as I think that there is a lot of sports fanaticism in small town, Canada (like Saskatoon and the RoughRiders) but you make a good point with how apathetic we are with amateur athletics. Although, I would have to say that this is more of a west coast thing than a east coast thing.

I went to UVic for Uni and I couldn't give a shit about how the UVic sport teams were doing. I just never formed any type of emotional connection with UVic and now here in Vancouver. Do I care how UBC or SFU is doing? Not really.

One year when I was at UVic the men's soccer team won nationals....I didn't even know playoffs had started and I was reasonably in tune with what was going on around school.

There are probably pockets within Canada that support athletics a bit better. University and CFL football games in Saskatchewan seem to have good attendance, and schools in the Maritimes seem to do OK as well.

For some reason Canadians are like obsessed with UFC. They’ll line up to pay $300 to watch that, but won’t fork out $15 to go to a WHL game. Go figure.

Nothing I have seen compares to athletics in the US. Take a school like Louisiana State University, which is about half the size of UBC, and situated in a city much smaller than Vancouver. LSU routinely fill a 90,000+ seat football stadium and a 10,000+ seat basketball stadium.

I seriously am embarrassed by how shitty Team 1040 is (but thats for a different thread).

I was thinking along the same lines. RSN and TSN don't put any money into marketing amateur athletics in Canada, so there really is no way to follow it. There are some CHL games, but the broadcasts kinda suck. I for one would probably start to tune in more to WHL games if they were available. Generally higher scoring, and more exciting. Kids actually playing because they want to play, not just for the paycheque.

You also have to think that the quality of the college/university athletics might improve if the athletes were suddenly getting national exposure.....it might attract some better talent to Canadian based universities if, coupled with an outstanding education, these athletes could actually get noticed by professional scouts.